CNDDB News Blog

Left: Bolander’s clover, photo by Trevor Van Loon (CC-BY 4.0)
Right: Austin’s astragalus, photo by Matt Berger (CC-BY 4.0)

The California Biodiversity Data Exchange needs your help to fill in data gaps using citizen science through the ongoing Counting Clovers and Mapping Milkvetches project on iNaturalist.

Clovers (genus Trifolium) and milkvetch (genus Astragalus) are widespread and abundant in many California ecosystems, but often overlooked. There are 153 species of Trifolium and Astragalus in California, 99 of which are tracked by the CNDDB!

So far, this project has catalogued 500+ observations of almost 50 CNDDB-tracked rare species, and there’s still time to hunt down a few more. Now is the perfect time to look for some of the higher-elevation montane species, such as Bolander’s clover (Trifolium bolanderi) in Yosemite or Austin’s astragalus (Astragalus austiniae) in the Tahoe basin.

The project curators have put together some helpful guides for how to identify clovers (PDF) and milkvetches (PDF), and which parts of the plant to focus on in your photos. Any iNaturalist observations of clovers and milkvetches you’ve made this spring or summer (March 1 – August 31, 2026) will be counted in the project, and any rare species you observe will be incorporated into future CNDDB updates.

Follow the project on iNaturalist for more updates and a peek at the species that have been observed so far!

Photo credit: California Academy of Sciences

It is now easier than ever for the California Natural Diversity Database (CNDDB) to incorporate your iNaturalist records for sensitive plant and wildlife taxa, thanks to the California Biodiversity Data Exchange (CalBioDEx, for short). This is a first-of-its-kind partnership between the CDFW, the California Academy of Sciences, and iNaturalist in order to facilitate data sharing of iNaturalist records for sensitive species with CDFW for species conservation and management decisions.

The CNDDB has long maintained an iNaturalist project to reach out to individuals about their sensitive species observations, which currently has 150,000+ observations of over 2,400 sensitive species. Observations that you opt to share with CDFW through the CNDDB project will continue to be a valuable resource, especially when users fill out the suggested observation fields (number observed, reproductive evidence, etc.).

A more streamlined data flow between iNaturalist and CDFW will make it easier for CNDDB staff to process that data into Element Occurrences (EOs), which are broadly used for environmental review and conservation purposes, as well as to inform state and global conservation status ranks. We expect it will take several years for iNaturalist observation data to be fully integrated into the CNDDB system. Submitting data to iNaturalist will not satisfy project or permit requirements to submit data to CNDDB; direct submissions to CNDDB will continue to be important.

 As part of the data exchange, we are also working with our partners at the Academy and iNaturalist to identify data gaps for sensitive species and leverage targeted citizen science campaigns to fill in those gaps. As part of this collaboration, CalBioDEx has developed an outreach campaign focusing on increasing the number of high-quality iNaturalist observations of clovers (Trifolium spp.) and milkvetches (Astragalus spp.). You can start Counting Clover and Mapping Milkvetch (PDF) right now by joining the project and keeping an eye out for these often-overlooked plants. The event runs from March through August, and we’ll be highlighting some of the neat CNDDB-tracked clovers and milkvetches you may encounter in future updates!

The Biogeographic Data Branch continually works to improve our data and tools for everyone. We announced back in June that BIOS 6 has launched. Though BIOS 6 is similar to BIOS 5, there are some differences that may hang up even our most experienced users. Therefore, we want to bring your attention to several training videos and user guides that are available on our training page that may assist you in using this new tool.

• Training videos
  • BIOS 6 Basics, BIOS 6 Tools, BIOS Advanced Tools – A series of videos that cover the background, purpose, structure, and tools in BIOS, ranging from the basic functions to the most advanced tools.
  • Accessing CNDDB and Spotted Owl Data using BIOS and RareFind – A video that demonstrates various ways our users can use BIOS and RareFind to dig deeper into the data within the CNDDB and Spotted Owl Observation Database.
• User guides
  • BIOS 6 Getting Started – A condensed version of basic BIOS 6 functions
  • BIOS 6 Data Viewer User Guide – Full user guide of BIOS 6 functions
  • Using the CNDDB Data in BIOS 6 – A guide to a subset of BIOS 6 tools that a CNDDB user may typically use.
  • CNDDB QuickView Tool User Guide for BIOS 6 – A guide to using the QuickView Tool in BIOS 6
  • Using the Spotted Owl Reports Tool in BIOS 6 – Instructions for generating Spotted Owl reports in BIOS 6

Please note that BIOS 5 will no longer be available starting January 2023 as we fully transition to BIOS 6. Please share with others that may need to know this information. If you have questions about BIOS 6, you can submit them to BIOS@wildlife.ca.gov.